Improving public school productivity: Evidence from model schools in India

This paper studies the impact of India’s “model” school program which aimed to provide high quality education to economically disadvantaged students. Model schools combine better infrastructure with more accountability, contract teachers, and lower per-pupil spending than regular public schools. Using a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design based on entrance exam cutoffs, I find attending a model school for five years increases test scores in math by 0.38 standard deviations, in science by 0.26 sd, and in social science by 0.26 sd on average. Furthermore, model schools increase the probability of joining pre-university by 11.5 percentage points. The results suggest it is possible to deliver substantial improvement of outcomes in public schools at a slightly lower level of school spending through a package of reforms.